By PAUL GOTHAM
MENDON, N.Y. — The Pittsford Mendon girls’ basketball team nearly erased a 16-point second-half deficit, but the Lady Vikings could not overcome the final hurdle in a 53-51 loss to Maine-Endwell (IV), Friday night.
Katie Bischoping scored 14 of her team-high 16 points in the second half. The senior guard connected on back-to-back possessions as part of 10-2 Mendon run to open the fourth quarter.
Bischoping’s second basket in the sequence, a finish in the lane off a lead from teammate Lexi Green, made it a 44-43 game with 2:45 remaining.
Lexi Green finds Katie Bischoping and we have a 1-point game with less than 3:00 minutes to go. pic.twitter.com/Tl1JfJnjPn
— Paul Gotham (@PickinSplinters) January 4, 2020
“At halftime, we really talked about getting good offensive and defensive rebounds,” Bischoping said. “At half we had a total of 12 rebounds. At the end of the game we had 36 total. That’s huge. That’s a ton of rebounds in one half. If we could have played with that intensity the whole entire game, we could have had it.”
Trailing 42-33 to start, Green sparked the run with a rebound and putback. Sophomore Anaya Coleman followed with a traditional 3-point play.
Mendon was within five at 44-39.
“Last year in our run we had a lot of those games where we were able to pull through just because of our grit and our heart,” Green said. “That game was a testament to our team and how hard we work. It was not how we wanted to start the game. We know how we are able to play, so in the future we will want to play the whole game that way.”
Sydney Gordon hit a baseline floater early in the first quarter for a 3-2 Mendon edge. Green converted one of two free throws for a 6-4 advantage. It was the Lady Vikings’ last lead of the game.
“We’re proud of our effort to make a comeback, but we don’t want to dig ourselves in that hole in the first place,” Gordon commented. “That’s something we’ve been talking about a lot. If we can play with that intensity that we played with at the end of the game, the whole time, I think we’ll have much better results.”
Maine-Endwell’s Allie Lamoreaux scored 12 of her game-high 21 points in the first half to pace the Spartans to a 30-14 lead at halftime.
Kacey Lamoreaux added seven of her 10 points in the opening eight minutes for Maine-Endwell (No. 19 NYSSWA Class A).
“It’s just a level of intensity that we need to figure out,” Gordon said of the first-half struggles. “That loss was completely on us. They’re a great team, but we blamed ourselves for that loss. I just think that’s something we need to fix. We can beat any opponent that we’re going to face this year in Section V, Section VI, any level in New York State. It’s just a matter of if we want it enough.”
Green finished with 13 points for Mendon (No. 2 NYSSWA Class A) which fell to 7-2 with the loss. Danielle Strauf had eight. Coleman contributed seven points and Ellen Henry two.
Mendon shot a collective 14 of 26 from the free throw line.
Mendon hosts Fairport on Tuesday.
Leave a Reply